Advertising feature: Water

SCOTLAND’S advanced water industry is providing an eight-year prototype case study as the sector in England prepares to open business water services supply to competition in 2017.

Between them, the 20-plus players in the Scottish non-domestic water and wastewater market have set the UK mark for customer expectation following deregulation in April 2008.

Since that time, businesses north of the border, from corner shops to industrial conglomerates, have been able to choose their supplier, regardless of water consumption levels.

On April 1 next year, all businesses in England will have the same option, putting them on an equal footing with the largest corporate counterparts.

Sector restructuring has in large measure delivered the tangibles set out in the original text book blueprint. The Scottish experience has ticked boxes in technical innovations – including automatic metering, tariff options, tailored service availability, advisory capacities and convenient online customer account self-management for small and medium-sized (SME) customer enterprises. Here, both newly founded Scottish operations and established English-based service companies have thrown their offer into the competitive non-domestic supply marketplace.

Meanwhile the pre-2008 incumbent Business Stream, part of the publiclyowned Scottish Water group, has necessarily altered course in response, retaining its position as the largest provider in Scotland with 50% of the market, split roughly 50-50 between corporate and SME.

And as English business consumers await their new choices, Scottish and indigenous suppliers with Scottish presence are assessing the market with a view to applying all of the knowledge gained during almost a decade of exposure to commercial demands.

Business Stream, for example, has bought the non-domestic customer base of Southern Water, the south-coast utility. It means that in April it becomes the UK’s third largest water business.

Choice, coupled to the ongoing option to switch – and with claimed ease – is a major driver of attitudes. One overarching fundament is therefore king: client satisfaction. That one remains a work in progress, according to one respected independent customer service index. Standards are rising, complaints are moving downward and customer collaboration increasingly appears to be welcomed, however. Building customer rapport is the new tactic towards creating enduring profitable relationships.